HGST SAS drives showing 0B - Oracle OEM firmware locked? H7210A520SUN010T and HUH721010AL5201

TrueNAS General
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Hardware:

  • NAS: Dell R720xd

  • HBA: Dell PERC H310 Mini flashed to IT mode (LSI 9211-8i equivalent)

  • OS: TrueNAS SCALE 25.04

  • Drives: 7x HGST 10TB SAS drives purchased from eBay surplus

    • 4x H7210A520SUN010T (Oracle/Sun OEM branded, firmware A3Y1)

    • 3x HUH721010AL5201 (standard HGST AL5201, firmware B21D)

Problem:

All 7 drives show as 0B in TrueNAS and refuse every command. SMART tests fail immediately.

What I’ve tried:

Tested on both TrueNAS SCALE (kernel 6.12) and Ubuntu Live USB (kernel 6.17). All 7 drives behave identically across both environments.

sg_inq shows Protect=1 on all drives. Every command including FORMAT UNIT, MODE SELECT, START STOP UNIT, and SANITIZE fails with:

Sense key: Not Ready
Additional sense: Logical unit not ready, initializing command required
Vendor specific [0x80]: f5 03  (Sun OEM drives)
Vendor specific [0x80]: f3 8a  (AL5201 drives)

Tools tried with no success:

  • sg_format (–size=512, --size=4096, --fmtpinfo=0, -F flags)

  • sg_sanitize (–crypto, --block)

  • sg_start --start

  • sg_requests (returns “No Sense” - drive thinks it’s fine)

  • sg_turs (10 TUR commands, all fail)

  • openSeaChest_Format (–formatUnit, --fastFormat 1, --setSectorSize)

  • sedutil-cli (shows “No” encryption on all drives)

  • Full cold boot of server

The drives spin up, are visible to lsscsi and openSeaChest --scan, respond to sg_inq, but reject every command that requires actual drive operation.

Suspected cause:

The H7210A520SUN010T drives are Oracle/Sun OEM variants with vendor-specific firmware. The f5 03 vendor sense code appears unique to these drives and doesn’t appear in any public documentation. The AL5201 drives are standard HGST but also refuse all commands with a similar state.

Question:

Has anyone successfully unlocked or reformatted Oracle OEM HGST SAS drives outside of Oracle hardware? Is there a known initialization command or firmware flash procedure for the H7210A520SUN010T specifically? Any leads on stock HGST firmware for either model that could replace the OEM firmware?

2

Gave up on these. They are in a box. :frowning:

1 Like
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I might be wrong for your drives but I unlocked a drive a few months ago. I powered on the machine, let it bootstrap. Then disconnected the power cable on the drive, count to 5, plug back in. I giess in my case the BIOS locked the drives so to clear it, leave the computer running and drop power for a few second, apply power and the BIOS can’t lock the drive.

Reused HDD Crashes Whole System Even After Sanitizing etc
4

This is from my old notes. I never used it but my have to get one or two drives to try if I need replacement drives and I may have to use these. So I am interested in the thread.

Unlock and reformat Oracle OEM HGST SAS drives.

  • sg_utils is the best bet.

This is more or less in order of usage with exceptions.

  • Use sg_map -i or lsscsi -g to find the correct device node (example: /dev/sg3). Do not use /dev/sdX use the device node.

If the drive is locked or not ready use the sg_sanitize first.

  • Use sg_readcap -l /dev/sgX to check the current logical block length and capacity.

  • sg_format --format --size=512 /dev/sgX: Changes sector size to 512 bytes or use size=4096 for 4Kn.

  • sg_format --resize --count=-1 /dev/sgX: Resizes to max capacity.

  • sg_format --format --fmtpinfo=0 /dev/sgX: Removes type 1/2 protection.

  • sg_sanitize: Removes SED locks.

Note: This procedure takes roughly 1+ hour for large capacity drives
If the drive still shows 0B, it might require a power cycle (shutting down the server entirely) after the format completes. (pull the drive power from the drive at minimum)

3 Likes
5

Did the Ebay seller mention anything about the drives being tested and validated? If they mention nothing about being locked, you might be able to ask them for a refund or a swap to other drives?

6

You can search on https://hddguru.com/ there is likely firmware that will work. It is suggested on other forums like servethehome. Besides firmware, you may also find info and tools to help.

EDIT: Art of Server has a video on Dell drives and how to format them too.

How to reformat drive sector size | 520b 524b 528b to 512b or 4k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAaTfv96V9w